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SPEECH 



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OF 



HON. JAMES A. GARFIELD, 



OF OHIO, 



DELIVERED AT 



CLEVELAND, OHIO, 



OCTOBER 11, 1879. 



WASHINGTON, D. G, : 
188§. 



• G[Z<\ 



IN EXCHANGE 

JAN 5 - 1915 



a 






SPEECH 

OF 



HON. JAMES A. GARFIELD, 



AT 



CLEVELAND, OHIO, OCT013ER 11, 1879. 



Fellow-Citizens- : The distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me 
hare covered the ground so completely and so admirably that I have a very 
easy task. I will pick up a few straws here and there over that broad field and 
ask you for a few moments to look at them. I take it for granted that every 
thoughtful, intelligent man would be glad, if he could, to be on the right side, 
believing that in the long run the right side will be the strong side. I take it 
for granted that every man would like to hold political opinions that will live 
some time, if he could. It is a very awkward thing indeed to adopt a political 
opinion, and trust to it, and find that it will not live over night. [Laughter.]; 
It would be an exceedingly awkward thing to go to bed alone with your politi- 
cal doctrine, trusting and believing in it, thinking it is true, and wake up in. 
the morning and find it a corpse in your arms. [Laughter.] 

I should be glad for my part to hold to a political doctrine that would live all 
through summer, and stand the frost, and stand a freeze in the winter, and 
come out alive and true in the spring. [Laughter.] I should like to adopt po- 
litical doctrines that would live longer than my dog. [Laughter.] I should be 
glad to hold to a political doctrine that would live longer than I shall live, and 
that my children after me might believe in as true, and say, " This doctrine is 
true to-day, and it was true fifty years ago when my father adopted it." 

Every great political party that has done this country any good has given to 
it some immortal ideas that have outlived all the members of that party. The 
old Federal party gave great, permanent ideas to this country that are still alive. 
The old Whig party did the same. The old, the very old, Democratic party did 
the same. [Laughter.] The party of Andrew Jackson, Benton and Calhoun. 
But 

THE MODERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY 

has given this country in the last twenty years no idea that has lived to be 
four years old. [Laughter.] I mean an idea, not a passion. The Democratic 
party has had passions that have lasted longer than that. They have had an 
immortal appetite for office. [Laughter.] That is just as strong to-day as it 
was twenty years ago. Somebody has called the Democratic party " an organ- 
feed appetite. " [Laughter.] But that is not an idea; that is of the belly [laugh- 
ter] and not of the heart, nor of the brain. 1 say again they have given to this 
country no great national idea or doctrine that has lived to be four years old ; 
and if we had in this great park, as in a great field, herded here together all the 
ideas that the Democratic party has uttered and put forth in the last twenty 
\ears there would not be found a four-year-old in the lot, [laughter]— hardly a 
three-year-old— hardly a two-year-old. They have adopted a doctrine just to 
last till election was over, and if it did not succeed, they have dropped it to try 
another ; and they have tried another until it failed, and then tried another : 



and it has been a series of mere trials to catch success. Whenever they have 
started in a campaign, they have looked out to all the political barns to see how 
the tin roosters were pointing, to learn from the political weather-cocks which 
way the wind is likely to blow ; and then they have made their doctrines ac- 
cordingly. [Laughter and applause.] This is no slander of the Democratic 
pan j . As my friend Mr. Foster has said, this is true not so much of the body 
of the party as of the leaders. What a dance they have put the good, sound. 
quiet, steady-going Democrat through during the last twenty years ! [Laugh- 
ter.] They made him denounce our war for a longj ime ; and then, when itwas 
all over, they made him praise it. [Laughter.] They made him vote with a 
party that called our soldiers " Lincoln's hirelings " and "Lincoln's dogs;" 
and this very day one of the men who did that is parading up and down this 
State praising the Democratic party because it has two soldiers at the head oJ 
its t Lcket, and sneering at us because Mr. Foster was not a soldier in the field. 

Thai party has taken both sides of every great question in this country in the 
iventy year.-. They arc in favor of the war— after it is over. [Laughter.] 
Tiny are in favor of hard money — or they will be next year, after it is an ac- 
complished fact. They were opposed to greenbacks when greenbacks were 
necessary to save the life of the nation, and when they thought it would be pop- 
ular to oppose greenbacks. The moment they found it was unpopular they 
faced the other way. and declared that the greenback was the best currencythe 
world ever saw. 

1 would like to ask that good, old, quiet Democrat how he has felt when they 
have told him to vote against the war one year and then praise it the next, anil 
he had to follow his leaders all the while, how he felt when they told him to 
curse greenbacks, and he voted the ticket, and then when they ordered him to 
wheel right around on his heel and march the other way. and vote the Demo- 
cratic ticket all the time. They told him. for example, that the proposition to 
let the negro have his freedom was an outrageous thing that must not be list- 
ened to. and he voted the Democratic ticket. A little while after they came 
around and said : ; * We will enforce all the amendments of the Constitution. 
the negro amendment among the rest, and we are among the best friends that 
the negro ever had." And yet he voted with them every time, [laughter.] 
facing right the other way. AVhen we proposed to give the ballot to the negro, 
the- -aid : " Why, he is an inferior race. God made him to lie a hewer of wood 
and a drawer of water. He is inferior to us. He is of bad odor, and bad every 
way. of low intelligence, and we will never, never allow him to vote." What 
do thev say n< >w ? They are cooing and billing with every negro that will listen 
to them, and asking him to vote the Democratic ticket. They are saying to 
him, "My friend, the Democratic party was always a good friend of the negro. 
[ Laughter.] The Democratic party knows the negro better than the Republi- 
cans do. We have been nearer to you. We know your habits. [Laughter.] 
We understand your character and we can do you more good. " Yes, they have 
been nearer to you. The fellow that flogs you with a cat-o '-nine-tails has to be 
pretty near to you. [Laughter.] They have a warm feeling for you. [Laugh- 
ter.] The man that brands your cheek witli a red-hot iron gets up a good deal 
of warmth towards you. [Laughter.] 

But, my friends, the curious thing is how a steady-going, consistent Demo- 
can have followed all these crooks and turns and facings-about of his party 
in all t hese years, and not have gotten dizzy by turning so frequently. [Laugh 
ter. | They shouted for hard money and he voted the Democratic ticket. They 
shouted for soft money and he voted the Democratic ticket. They said the 
three amendments to the Constitution were void and should not be obeyed, and 
he voted t he i >emocratic ticket. They walked right out to the next great elec- 
tion bringing Horace Greeley in their arms and said, " We will carry out all 
the amendments to the Constitution ; we will be thebest friend of the slave in 
the world.'" and he voted the Democratic ticket, [laughter,] following in the 
same wake. 

Now, my friends, there lias not been a leading prophecy, there has not been 
a leading doctrine put forward by the Democratic party in all these years 
that if has not itself abandoned. 1 do not believe there is a fair-minded Dem- 
ocrat here to-night who does not rejoice in his soul that his party has aban- 
doned the leading doctrines of the last twenty yours. [Laughter.] Aro you 



sorry, my Democratic friend, that slavery is dead ? 1 believe you are not. 
Then you are glad that we outvoted you when you tried to keep it alive. [Ap- 
plause.] Are you sorry that rebellion and secession are dead i If you are not, 
then you are glad that you were overwhelmed and outvoted when you tried to 
keep the party that sustained them alive. [Applause.] Are you glad that our 
war was not a failure ? If you are, you are glad that we voted you down in 
1864, when your central doctrine was that the war was a failure and must be 
stopped. If you are glad of so many things, will you not be glad when we hava 
voted down your party next Tuesday and elected Charley Foster governor of 
Ohio? [Applause. A voice, "We are going to do it for a fact.''] You are 
going to do it, I have no doubt. 

WHY REPUBLICANS WILL SUCCEED. 

There are two great reasons why the people of this State are going to do it. 
One is that they do not intend to allow any more fooling with the business of 
this country. [Applause.] For the last four years the chief obstacles in the 
way of the restoration of business prosperity and the full employment of labor 
in this country has been the danger threatened to you by the politicians in Con- 
gress. [Applause.] Business has waited to awaken. Prosperity has been try- 
ing to come. General Ewing tells us that it is Divine Providence and a good 
crop that brought revival of business this year. I remind General Ewing that 
we had a bountiful crop last year, and business did not revive. I remind him 
that the year before was a year of great harvest and plenty, and prosperity did 
not come. 

EWING 'S GOSPEL. 

Do you know that when we commenced this campaign General Ewing began 
to preach his old sermon of last year — his gospel of gloom, and darkness, and 
distress, and misery ; and some of his friends said : " But see here, Ewing, the 
furnaces are aflame ; the mills are busy. It will not do to talk that these peo- 
ple are all in distress." And for a week or two Mr. Ewing denied that there 
was any revival of business. He denied it flatly. But every mill roared in his 
ears, and every furnace and forge flashed in his eyes the truth that there was a 
revival of business ; and then for about four days he undertook to say that it waa 
A campaign dodge of the Republican party, [laughter-,] that they started up a 
few iron-mills until election to affect the election. But that would not work, for 
Democratic States began to start their iron-mills, [laughter;] rebel States began to 
Doom in business, and that second explanation of Mr. Ewing 's would not work. 
Then he undertook, and is still undertaking, to explain this prosperity away. 
[ heard a gentleman lately tell an incident that illustrates this futile attempt of 
Mr. Ewing. England wanted Garibaldi married to some distinguished Eng- 
fisk lady so as to ally free Italy to England. They got it well talked up in dip- 
lomatic circles, but finally some unfortunate fellow suggested a fact that dis- 
turbed their calculations. It was that Garibaldi was married, [laughter J that 
be had a young, healthy wife, likely to outlive him. The old diplomatist, not 
to be balked by any obstacles, said : " Never mind, we will get Gladstone to ex- 
plain her away." [Laughter.] Gladstone is a very able man, but when he at- 
tempts to explain away as real a thing as a womaD, [laughter,] and a wife at 
that, he undertakes a great contract. [Laughter.] Thomas Ewing is not any 
abler than Gladstone, and his attempt to explain away this prosperity of ©ux 
eountry will be more disastrous than the attempt of Gladstone would have bee» 
if he had made it, [Applause ; cries of " Hear I " " Hear I "] Everywhere he 
goes it meets him. 

THE REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 

Pig iron in this country, the lowest form of the iron product, has risen ia 
price almost thirteen dollars the ton since resumption came, [applause,] andaH 
industries depending upon it have risen in proportion. My only fear — and I say* 
it to the business men around me to-night— is that the revival of business is 
coming too fast, and that we may overdo it and bring a reaction by and by. 
But that prosperity has come, and, if we do not abuse it, has come to stay, I 
have no doubt. I do not claim that the resumption of specie payments has done 
it at ail. I admit that the favorable balance of trade, that the operation of our 



6 

tariff laws, that our own great crops and the failure of crops in Europe have 
done much to secure and aid this revival of business. 

But there is an element in this revival distinctly and markedly traceable to 
the resumption of specie payments, and I ask your indulgence for a half a min- 
ute to state it. 

WHAT RESUMPTION HAS DONE. 

All over this country there was hidden away in the hands of private men, 
in stockin g f eet, in tills, in safes, capital that they dared not invest. Why? 
Because they did not know what Congress would do ; whether it would vote 
their prosperity up or down, whether "the wild vagaries of tiat money should 
rule or whether the old God-made dollar of the Constitution and the fathers, 
the hundred-cent dollar, the dollar all round, should come to be our standard or 
not ; and they waited. But the moment our Government, in spite of the Dem- 
ocratic party, in spite of the fiat-money party, in spite of all croakers of all 
part ies, resolved to redeem the great war promises of the nation, and lift our cur- 
rency up to be as good as gold the world over, that moment the great needed resto- 
ration of confidence came, and when it came, capital came out of its hiding 
places and invested itself in business. [Applause. J And that investment, that 
confidence, that stability, gave the grand and needed impetus to the restoration 
of prosperity in this country. 

Now, what lias been the trouble with us? Eighteen hundred and sixty was 
one shore of prosperity and 1879 the other ; and between tho^e two high shores 
has Mowed the broad, deep, dark river of fire and blood and disaster through 
which this nation has been compelled to wade [applause] and in whose depths it 
has been almost suffocated and drowned. In the darkness of that terrible pas- 
sage we carried liberty in our arms ; we bore the Union on our shoulders ; and 
we bore in our hearts and on our arms what was even better than liberty and 
Union — we bore the faith and honor and public trust of this mighty nation. 
[Applause.] And never, until we came up out of the dark waters, out of the 
darkness of that terrible current, and planted our feet upon tho solid shore of 
1879— never, I say, till then could this country look back to the other shore and 
feel that its feet were on solid ground, and then look forward to the rising up- 
lands of perpetual peace and prosperity that should know no diminution in the 
years to come. [Applause.] 

I rejoice, for my part, that the party to which I belong has not been fighting 
against God in this struggle for prosperity. [Applause.] I rejoice that the 
pari y to which I belong lias not had its prospects hurt by the coming of pros- 
perity. [Applause.] Can you say so much, my Democratic friend, for your 
party ? Would it not have been better for you at the polls next Tuesday if the 
blight had fallen upon our ereat corn crop, if the Colorado beetle had swept 
every potato Meld in America, if the early fruit had smitten us all ? Don't you 
think Mr. Ewing could then have talked more eloquently about the grief, and 
Suffering, and outrage, and hard times brought upon you by tho Republican 
policy of resumption? [Applause and laughter.] I should be ashamed to be- 
long to a political party whose prospects were hurt by the blessing of my 
country. 

But it so was all during the war. Just before election day time in. Ohio dur- 
ing the war, a great battle that won a victory over the rebellion hurt the Dem- 
ocratic party in this State, and they walked about our streets looking down 
their noses in sadness and gloom, recognizing that their ballots would be fewer 
en election day because of . the success of our arms; audit' our soldiers were 
Overwhelmed in battle, if five thousand of your children were slaughtered on 
the held by the enemies of the Republic, the Democrats in Ohio walked more 
confidently to the polls on election day, and said: " Didn't I tell yon 
[Applause.] There is something wrong with a party about which those things 
could be truthfully said, and you know that they are the truth. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TRUE TO THE PEOPLE. 

Now, I leave all thai with tills single reflection : That- it, is to me for my 
party a matter of pride and congratulation tliat in all the darkness of these 
years we have not deceived you by any cunning device to Matter your passions 
or your hopes. We have told you these are hard times ; wears in the midst 



of suffering, and there is no patent process by which you can get out ol It. 
You cannot print yourselves rich. You have got to suffer and be strong, "bfou 
have got to endure and be economical. You have got to wait in patience and 
do justice, keep your pledges, keep your promises, obey the laws, and by-and-by 
prosperity will come with its blessings upon you. We have now nothing to 
take back. We rejoice that we were true to you in the days of darkness, and 
we congratulate you that you have stood by the truth until your hour of tri- 
umph has come. [Applause.] 

ANOTHER REASON FOR TRIUMPH. 

I said there were two reasons why I theught we would triumph next Tues- 
day. I have hinted at one ; I will now speak briefly of the other. I mean to 
say that the great audiences that have gathered everywhere in Ohio during this 
campaign have had more than finance in their hearts. They have thought of 
something as much higher than finance as liberty is more precious than cask 
[Applause.] They have been moved— and I ask all Democrats to hear it with 
patience — by what I venture to call 

THE NEW REBELLION 

against liberty and this Government. [Applause.] I do not mean a rebellion 
with guns, for I think that was tried to the hearts' content of the people that 
undertook it. [Applause.] Not that, but another one no less wicked in pur- 
pose and no less dangerous in character. Let me try in a few words, if it be 
possible to reach all this vast audience, to make you understand what I mean 
by this new rebellion. 

Fellow-citizens, what is the central thought in American life ? What is the 
germ out of which all our institutions were born and have been developed ? 
Let me give it to you in a word. When the Mayflower was about to land her 
precious freight upon the shore of Plymouth, the Pilgrim Fathers gathered in 
the cabin of that little ship, on a stormy November day, and after praying to 
Almighty God for the success of their great enterprise drew up and signed 
what is known in history, and what will be known to the last syllable of 
recorded time, as 

" THE PILGRIM COVENANT." 

In that covenant is one sentence which I ask you to take home with you to- 
night. It is this : " We agree before God and each other that the freely-ex- 
pressed will of the majority shall be the law of all, which we will all obey." 
[Applause.] Ah, fellow-citizens, it does honor to the heads and the hearts of 
a great New England audience here on this Western Reserve to applaud the 
grand and simple sentiment of the Pilgrim Fathers. They said, " No stand- 
ing army shall be needed to make us obey. We will erect here in America a 
substitute for monarchy, a substitute for despotism, and that substitute shall 
be the will of the majority as the law of all." And that germ, planted on the 
rocky shores of New England, has sprung up, and all the trees of our lib- 
erty have grown from it into the beauty and glory of this year of our life. 
[Applause.] 

Over against that there grew up in the South a spirit in absolute antagonism 
to the "Pilgrim Covenant." That spirit, engendered by the institution of! 
slavery, became one of the most powerful and despotic of all the forces on the 
face of this globe. 

Let me state, even as an apology for that tyranny— if you and I owned a pow- 
dcr mill in the city of Cleveland, we would have a right to make some very 
stringent and arbitrary rules about that powder mill. We would have a right 
to say that no man should enter it who had nails in the heels of his boots,, 
because a single step might explode it and ruin us all. But that would be 
an absurd law Lo make about your own house or about a green grocer's shop. 

Now, the establishment of the institution of slavery required laws and cus- 
toms absolutely tyrannical in their character. Nails in the heels of your boots 
in a powder magazine would be safety compared with letting education infcqj 
Slavery. [Applause.] It was an institution that would be set on fire by the 
torch of knowledge, and they knew it, and therefore they said, " The shining 
gates of knowledge shal be shut everywhere where a slave lives. It shall be a 



crime to teach a black man the alphabet ; a crime greater still to teach him the 
living oracles of Almighty God ; for if once the golden rule of Christ finds its 
way into the heart of a negro man, and ho learns the literature of liberty, our 
institution is in danger. Hence the whole Southern people became a discip- 
lined, banded, absolute despotism over the politics of their section. They had 
to be. I do not blame them. I only blame the system that compelled them to 
be so. Now, therefore, all before the war the Southern people were the best 
disciplined politicians in this world. They were organized on the one great 
idea of protecting their Southern society with slavery as its center. Do you 
know the power of discipline ? Hero is a vast audience of ten or fifteen thou- 
sand people in this square, and you are not organized. One resolute captain 
with one hundred resolute, disciplined soldiers, such as stormed the heights of 
Kenesaw, could sweep through this square and drive us all out hither and 
thither at their pleasure. And that is nothing against our courage. It is in 
favor of their discipline. The clinched fist of Southern slaveholders was too 
much for the great, bulky, proud strength of the North. They went to Wash- 
ington, consolidated for one purpose, and they called all their fellows around 
them from the North, and said, " Give way to our doctrine, and you have our 
friendship and support. Go against us at all, and we rule you out of place and 
power." The result was that the Southern politicians absolutely commanded 
and controlled their Northern allies. They converted the 

NORTHERN DEMOCRATS INTO DOUGH-FACES 

of the most abject pattern ; and you know here to-night, if there be a Demo- 
crat who listens to me, that the Republican party was born as a protest against 
the tyranny of that Southern political hierarchy that made slaves of all North- 
ern Democrats. [Applause.] Three-quarters of the Republican party were 
made up twenty-live years ago by Democrats that would no longer consent 
to be slaves. 

Now, why am I going into that long tirade in the past? For this purpose: 
After the war was over, and reconstruction completed, thi s same Southern po- 
litical hierarchy came back into power in Washington, and to-day thev are as 
consolidated as the slaveholding politicians of 18G0-'l were! [''Hear!" 
"hear ! "] And to-day they hold in their grip absolutely all the Northern mem 
dots of their party ! The Northern dough-face has again appeared in Ameri- 
can politics, and he is found wherever a Democrat Congressman sits. [Ap- 
plause.] I say without offense, it is the literal truth that this day there is not 
in all this country a free and absolutely independent-minded Democratic mem- 
ber of either House of your Congress at Washington. [Applause.] 

Now let me go back for a moment, and return to this point with a reinforce- 
ment. Are you aware that there is one thing that can kill this country and 
kill it beyond all hope ? That one thing is the destruction or enslavement of 
its voting population. The voting population of the United States is the only 
sovereign on this continent. [Applause.] You talk about the sovereign States, 
or even the sovereign nation. A corporation is not a sovereign. The corpor- 
ation that we call Ohio was made by the people, and they are its sovereigns. 
Even the grand corporation that we call the United States was created also by 
the people, who are its superiors and its only sovereigns. Now, therefore, if 
anything happens in this country to corrupt, or enslave, or destroy the voters 
of the United States, that is an irreparable injury to liberty and the Union. 
[Applause.] If in Europe they slay a sovereign, one man is killed, and another 
can be found to take his place ; but when they slay our sovereign theve is no 
heir to the throne ; our sovereign has no successor. 

Well, now, that is rather general, but I ask you to come down to particulars. 
Let me make this statement to you : In 1S72, only seven years ago, in the 
eleven States that went into rebellion there were cast, at a free and fair elec- 
tion, 750,000 Republican votes and 650,000 Democratic votes. There is liberty 
for you 1 There are a million and a quarter of free voting citizens casting their 
ballots for the men of their choice ! 

This country has been growing in the last seven years, but let me tell yen 
what calamity lias happened to us. In those same eleven late rebel States thore 
have disappeared apparently from the face of the earth 100,000 American voters. 
Fellow-citizens that is an awful sentenee which 1 have just spoken in your 



9 

hearing. I repeat it. In eleven States of this Union there have disappeared, 
apparently from the face of the earth, 400,000 American voters. Where have 
they gone ? They are all Republicans. Have they gone to the Democratic 
party ? No ; for the Democratic party has also lost some of its voters in those 
States. What has happened? I will tell you. That spirit of Southern tyranny, 
that old spirit of despotism born of slavery, has arisen and killed freedom in 
the'South. It has slain liberty in at least seven of the eleven States of the 
South. 

MISSISSIPPI BULL-DOZING. 

It happened in this wise : In 1872, in five States of the South, we had a marked, 
overwhelming, and fair majority of Republican votes. For example, in the State 
of Mississippi, at the Congressional election of 1872, there were thrown 80,803 
Republican votes, and there were thrown 40,500 Democratic votes. That was 
a fair test of the strength of the two parties. Five Republicans and one 
Democrat were elected to Congress from the State of Mississippi. Six years 
passed, and in 1878 there were just 2,056 Republican votes thrown in the State 
of Mississippi. How many Democratic votes ? Thirty-five thousand. They 
had fallen off 5,000 ; the Republicans had fallen off 78,000 votas. Where had 
the 78,000 voters gone ? I will tell you. The rebel army, without uniforms, 
organized itself as Democratic clubs in Mississippi, and armed with shot-guns 
and rifles, surrounded the houses of Republican voters, with the muzzles of 
their guns at their heads, in the night, and said, "You come out and vote, if 
you dare. We will kill you when you come." And all over the State of Mis- 
sissippi the Democratic party, being the old rebel army, deployed itself among 
the cabins of the blacks and killed liberty everywhere throughout that State. 

Why, in a district of Mississippi where, in 1872, 15,000 Republican votes were 
polled and 8,000 Democratic, there were but 4,000 polled for a rebel general and 
twelve scattering votes polled for other people— not one Republican vote put in 
a box in all the district. So it was in Alabama. So it was in Louisiana in part. 
So it was in the two Carolinas. The result was this : Four hundred thousand 
voters substantially annihilated. And the further result was this : Thirty 
Democratic rebels elected in Republican districts where liberty had first been 
slain ; and to-day there are thirty members of Congress, not one of whom has 
any more right to sit there and make laws for you and me than an inhabitant 
of that jail has a right to go there and make laws for us. [Applause.] They 
are not created Congressmen by virtue of law, but by virtue of murder, assas- 
sination, riot, intimidation ; and on the dead body of American liberty they 
stand and make laws for you and me. [Applause.] That gives them the House. 
That gives them the Senate. That gives the old slave power and the old rebel 
power its grip again on this country, and it gives them what we call the Solid 
South. I am talking plain talk. I am talking words that I expect will be read 
by every gentleman in Congress whom I am to-night denouncing. I expect to 
meet those gentlemen and make good every word I say. [Great applause.] 

THE AIM OF THE SOLID SOUTH. 

If ow, what purpose has this Solid South in thus grasping power and killing 
liberty ? This : They are determined to make their old " lost cause " the tri- 
umphing cause. Who is their leader to-day ? By all odds, the most popular 
man south of Mason and Dixon's line is Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. He 
is to-day their hero and their leader ; and I will give you my proof of it. 

THE RICE PENSION BILL. 

Do you know that our friend General Rice has been making a great deal of 
small capital out of the fact that he introduced an arrears of pensions bill for 
soldiers V You all know what kind ®f a bill that was. It was a bill granting 
arrears of pensions to our soldiers ; but it also granted arrears of pensions to 
all rebel soldiers who had fought in the Mexican war. We made a law that the 
name of a man who had taken up arms against this country should be stricken 
from our pension roHs, and he should receive no money out of our Treasury. 
That law Mr. Rice's bill repealed in so far as it related to the Mexican soldiers, 
and he knew and was told plainly that that clause included Jefferson Davis as 
one of the pensioners to be helped by that law ; and even in that rebel Congress! 
ther-> wvij many Democrats that could not quite be brought up to the scratch 



10 

to vote to pension Jefferson Davis ; and hence Mr. Rice's bill kiting in the com- 
mittee and was not reported. Then a Republican member of the House moved 
to discharge the, committee from the consideration of the whole subject. He 
introduced a bill that did not have Jefferson Davis in it, but liad only our sol- 
diers in it ; and that bill, not Mr. Rice's, passed. [Applause.] But when that 
bill got to the Senate a Democrat moved to add the Rice section that covered 
all rebel pensioners under its provisions; and then it was that Mr. Hoar, of 
Massachusetts, called the attention of the United States Senate to the fact that 
that amendment would include Jefferson Davis, and he moved an amendment 
to the amendment that it should not be so constructed. 

THE DEFENDERS OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

What followed ? Immediately there sprang to his feet our Ohio Senator. 1 
blush for my State when I repeat it. Allen G. Thurman arose to his feet and 
said : " The Democratic Legislature of Ohio has instructed me to vote to pen- 
sion the soldiers of the Mexican war, and they did not instruct me to make an 
exception against Jefferson Davis, and therefore I vote against Mr. Hoar's 
amendment." Thereupon Mr. Hoar spoke against the amendment that would 
pension Jefferson Davis, and the moment he did it there sprang up all over that 
chamber champions and defenders of Jefferson Davis. The tomahawks liter- 
ally flew, or rather metaphorically flew, everywhere at the head of any Repub- 
lican that dared to suggest that the Government ought not to pension Jefferson 
Davis. Lamar, of Mississippi, an eloquent and able Senator, arose in his place 
and said that there had not lived on this earth, from the days of Hampden to 
Washington, a purer patriot and a nobler man than Jefferson Davis, of Missis- 
sippi. Man after man exhausted his eloquence in defending and eulogizing the 
arch-rebel, who led this country into oceans of blood. I give you that to show 
the spirit that animates the people that rule in Congress to-day. 

Now let me say a word more that connects what I am saying with the old 
story of the days' before slavery was dead. I have been seventeen years a mem- 
ber of the House*, and in all that period 1 never have once known, as my friends 
here on the stand can testify in their experience, of the members of the Repub- 
lican party binding themselves in a caucus to support any bill before Congress. 
I have seen it tried once or twice, but I have always seen dozens of Republi- 
cans spring to their feet and say, " I am a free man, and I will vote according 
to the interests of my constituents and the dictates of my conscience, and no 
caucus shall bind me." 

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RULED BY THE CAUCUS. 

But the moment the Democratic party got back into power again, that mo- 
ment they organized the caucus— the secret caucus, the oath-bound caucus, for 
within the recent extra session they have actually taken oaths not to divulge 
what occurred in caucus, and to be bound by whatever the caucus decreed, and 
I have known man after man, wdio had sworn by all the wicked gods at once 
that he would not be bound to go for a certain measure, walk out ®f the caucus 
like a sheep led to the slaughter, and vote for the bill that he had cursed. They 
brought bills at the extra session so full of manifest errors that when we pointed 
them out fchey would admit in private that there were errors that ought to be 
corrected^ but they would say, u I have agreed to vote for it without 'amend- 
ment, and I will." We pointed out wretchedly bad grammar in bills, and they 
would not even correct their grammar, because the caucus had adopted ii 
[Laughter.] Now, therefore, gentlemen, the Congress of the United States is 
ruled by a caucus. It has ceased to be a deliberative body. It is ruled by a 
georel caucus, and who rules the caucus ? Two-thirds of its members are men 
who foughl this country in war; who tried to destroy this nation, and who to- 
day look upon Jefferson Davis as the foremost patriot and highest political 
leader in America. Therefore, the leadership which rules you is the rebellion 
in Congress. 

THE DEMOCRATIC PLAN FOR SUCCESS IN 1S80. 

Well, now, what of that ? This is not all. They look over the field of 1.880 
and they Bay they have got in their hand*? the solid South, and they lack only 
one thing more." They lack thirty-seven electoral votes to add to their one 



11 

hundred and thirty-five and they have captured the offices of the Government 
and have captured the Presidency. The South will have the whole control of 
this Republic in its hands. 

Now, how are they going to get the thirty-seven electoral votes ? There are 
two States that will fill the bill— New York and Ohio. If they can get those 
two States next year they have indeed captured the Government. [A voice : 
" They can't have them."] This good friend says they can't have them. [A 
voice: " Never."] They cannot get them in this audience. This is not the 
place to capture the State of Ohio for rebel brigadiers. They cannot capture 
it in any of the great agricultural counties of Ohio, for they are sound and true 
to the Union, and loyal to their heart's core. They cannot go into the central 
parts of patriotic New York and capture the thirty-seven votes. 

But 1 will tell you, fellow-citizens, what they hope to do, and there is one 
way by which they may succeed. Let me stop and say one single word to you 
about the great cities. Thomas Jefferson said that great cities were the sores 
on the body politic— the cancers whose roots run down and curse, and will ulti- 
mately break up the country unless they are ruled. A city of the size of Cleve- 
land has its troubles. A great city like the city of New York has passed the 
bounds of safety in this country. 

The ablest orator that Rome ever produced, in describing the political party 
led by Cataline, said that all the bankrupts, all the desperadoes, all the thieves 
and robbers and murderers gathered around Cataline, and finally, in a horrible 
figure of tremendous power, he said that the party of Cataline was " the bilge 
water of Rome." What a figure that is, my friends ! What do you mean by 
" bilge water V " That water that leaks stealthily through your planks and 
down below tlie deck and in the darkness, out of sight, out of reach : it reeks 
and stagnates and stinks, breeds pestilence and brings death upon all that are 
on board. Cicero said that that party that gathered in Rome was " the bilge 
water of Rome," and into that bilge water, in the cities of Cincinnati and New 
York, the Democratic party desire to insert their political pumps and pump out 
tho hell broth that can poison and corrupt and ruin the freedom of both these 
great cities, and gain them to the solid South. [Applause.] That is the pro- 
gramme. If they can get control of the elections, they will make both those 
cities strong enough Democratic to overwhelm all the votes that the green lanes 
of our country can grow. 

THE ELECTION LAWS. 

Now, what is in the way of that ? Just two things. The United States have 
passed a law to put a Democrat at one end of the ballot-box in the great cities 
and a Republican at the other end, and it empowered those two men, not to run 
the election, but to stand there as eyes of the Government and look— look first 
to see that the ballot-box is empty when they begin, and then to stand and look 
into the face of every man that votes, and if he comes to vote twice record it 
and have him brought before the judge and sent to the penitentiary for his 
crime; and to stay there until the polls are closed, and then not allow the ballot- 
boxes to be sent off and the vote counted in secret by partisan judges* but to be 
opened and unfolded and read in the light of day, recorded and certified to by 
the Republican and Democratic officers, so that the justice of the ballot-box 
should not be outraged and freedom should not be slain. 

No j uster law was ever passed on this continent than that. It saved -New 
York from the supremest of crimes. It elicited, even from a Democratic com- 
mittee, of which A. V. Rice was a member, the highest possible encomium in 
187G. And he and "Sunset " Cox, of New York, in their official report to Con- 
gress, recommended to all parts of the country the admirable election law of 
Congress that brought into unison and co-operation the officers of the fetate 
and the officers of the nation, in keeping a pure ballot and a free election in the 
great cities. That is what the Democratic party said of this law m 18<b. liut 
their masters of the caucus had not then given out their decree, lliey nave 
now given it, and the decree from the secret caucus, the decree from their old 
slave masters, has now gone forth : "Take those two men away from the bal- 
lot>box. Wipe out the election law so that the Tweeds of New \ ork and the 
Bph Hollands of Cincinnati may have free course, and do the work, and hx 
18S0 in their own way." That is the programme of the rebel brigadiers in 
Congress. 



Ml 

I understand that Mr. Ewing said here the other night lie was amazed to hear 
Republicans talk as though they were afraid of a few rebel brigadiers, i t was not 
so surprising, he said, that our friend Foster should be afraid of them, throwing 
a slur at him because he was not in the army, hut he was surprised that General 
Garfield should be alarmed at the brigadiers. [Laughter.] I am here to answer 
General Ewing. [Applause.] As to who is afraid of brigadiers, let him boast 
who has the first need to boast. [Applause.] 

But there are some things I am afraid of, and I confess it in this great pres- 
ence. I am afraid to do a mean thing. [Applause and cries of " Good."] I 
am afraid of any policy that will let the vileness of New York city pour its 
foul slime over the freedom of the American ballot-box and ruin it. [Ap- 
plause.] And the man that is not afraid of that I am ashamed of him. [Ap- 
plause.] 

THE REBEL PROBLEM. 

Now. how to get those two men away from the ballot-box is the rebel prob- 
lem. If they get them away, the solid South has triumphed. If they get 
them away, "the lost cause " has won, and Jefferson Davis is crowned as the 
foremost man in America. If they get them away, good-bye for a generation 
to come to the M ''pilgrim covenant " and the doctrine of the right of the 
majority to rule. 

Now, how did they undertake to get them away ? In this way : They said 
to us, "At last we have got you. We have the control of the Treasury". Xo 
money can be employed to support the Government unless we vote it by an 
appropriation. N<av, we tell you that we will never vote one dollar to support 
your Government until you join us in tearing down that election law and take 
away those two witnesses from the polls." That is what they told us. 

Then we answered them thus : " Eighteen years ago you were in power in 
this Congress, and ti\e last act of your domination was this : You told us that 
if we dared to elect Abraham Lincoln President you would shoot our Govern- 
ment to death ; and we answered, ' We are free men, begotten of freedom, and 
are accustomed to vote our thoughts. We believe in Abraham Lincoln. We 
will elect him President.' And Ave did. [Applause.] And then eleven 
great States declared lhat they would shoot the Union to death, and we appealed 
to the majesty of the great North land and went out onto a thousand bloodj 
battle-fields, and wo knot the shooters to death and saved this Union alive. 
[Applause.] And for eighteen years you have been in exile, banished from 
power, and now, by virtue of murder, and assassination, and the slaying of 
liberty, you have como back ; and the first act you do on your return ia not now 
courageously to dare us out to battle, but like assassins, cowards, murderers, 
you come to us and say, 'With our hand on the throat of your Government, we 
will starve it to death if you do not let us pluck down the sacred laws that pro- 
tect the purity of elect ions.' " And we said to them : '• By the sacred mem- 
■>f eighteen years ago. we reply, ' You shall not starve this Government 
to death, por shall you tear down these laws. The men that saved it in battle 
Avill now feed it in peace. [Great applause.] The men that bore it on 
their shields in the hour of death will feed it with the gift of their hands in 
the hour of its glory.'" And they said, " You shall try it." And they passed 
their iniquitous bill. They took the bread of the Government and spread upon 
it the poison of the bilge water of New York and Cincinnati, and they said to 
the Government, " Bat this or starve." They passed the iniquity through the 
I!- 8 and through the Senate, and it went to an Ohio Republican who sits in 
the seat of the great Washington, [applause.] whose arm is mailed with the 
thunderbolt of the Constitution ;• and he hurled the power of bis veto against 
the wicked bin, and tilled it. Fiye times they tried the iniquity, and live 
times he killed with the power of I he ( lonsl it nl ion 1 be wickedness I bej sought 
rpetrate. [Applause.] And then, like sneaking cowards as thej were, 
they passed the appropriations all but six hundred thousand dollars and said, 

" We will OOme hack to it next winter, and we will never give it up until we 

conquer you •, and in the meantime.'" they said, " we will appeal to the people 

ballot-box." They are now making thai appeal. And so are we. That 

is what, v.e are nere for to-night. | Applause. J And it is that appeal that 

awakens this people as it has never been awakened before Binoe the days of 



Vallandigham and Brough, especially Brough. [Laughter.] In the presence 
of this people, in the heart of this Old Reserve, I feel the consciousness of our 
strength and the aslurance of our victory. [Applause.] 

AN APPEAL TO YOUNG MEN. 

Now, fellow-citizens, a word before I leave you, on the very eve of the 
holy day of God— a lit moment to consecrate ourselves finally to the great work 
of next Tuesday morning. I see in this great audience to-night a great many 
young men, young men who are about to cast their first vote. I want to give 
you a word of suggestion and advice. I heard a very brilliant thing said by a 
boy the other day up in one of our northwestern counties. He said to me, 
" General, I have a great mind to vote the Democratic ticket." That was not 
the brilliant thing. [Laughter.] I said to him, "Why?" "Why," said he,, 
"my father is a Republican and my brothers are Republicans, and I am a Re- 
publican all over, but I want to be an independent man, and I don't want any- 
body to say, ' That fellow votes the Republican ticket just because his dad 
does,' and I have half a mind to vote the Democratic ticket just to prove my 
independence." I did not like the thing the boy suggested, but I did admire 
the spirit of the boy that wanted to have some independence of his own. 

Now, I teU you, young man, don't vote the Republican ticket just because 
your father votes it. Don't vote the Democratic ticket, even if he does vote 
it. [Laughter.] But let me give you this one word of advice, as you are about 
to pitch your tent in one of the great political camps. Your life is full and 
buoyant with hope now, and I beg you, when you pitch your tent, pitch it among 
the living and not among the dead. [Applause.] If you are at all inclined to 
pitch it among the Democratic people and with that party, let me go with you 
for a moment while we survey the ground where I hope you will not shortly lie. 
[Laughter.] It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your young life into 
It'is«=to me far more like a grave-yard than like a camp for the living. Look at 
it ! It is billowed all over with the graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, 
of exploded theories, of disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in 
such a place. [Laughter.] Why, look here ! Here is a little double mound. I 
look down on it and I read, " Sacred to the memory of squatter sovereignty 
and the Dred Scott decision. " A million and a half of Democrats voted for 
that, but it has been dead fifteen years— died by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, 
and here it lies. [Applause.] Young man, that is not the place for you. 

But look a little further. Here is another monument, a black tomb, and be- 
side it, as our distinguished friend said, there towers to the sky a monument 
of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I 
read on its little headstone this : "Sacred to the memory of human slavery. " 
For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic party taught that it was 
divine— God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they fol- 
lowed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. [Applause.] Dead by the power of the Republican party. [Ap- 
plause.] Dead by the justice of Almighty God. [Great applause and cheers.] 
Don't camp there, young man. 

But here is another. A little brimstone tomb, [laughter,] and I read across 
its yellow face in lurid, bloody lines these words : " Sacred to the memory of 
State sovereignty and secession." Twelve millions of Democrats mustered 
around it in arms to keep it alive ; but here it lies, shot to death by the mill- 
ion guns of the Republic. [Applause.] Here it lies, its shrine burned to ashes 
under the blazing rafters of the burning Confederacy. [Applause.] It is 
dead ! I would not have you stay in there a minute, even in this balmy night 
air, to look at such a place. [Laughter.] 

But just before I leave it I discover a new-made grave, a little mound— short. 
The grass has hardlv sprouted over it, and all around it I see torn pieces of 
paper with the word "fiat" on them, [laughter,] and I look down in curiosity, 
wondering what the little grave is, and I read on it : "Sacred to the memory of 
the Rag Baby. Hauchter Q nursed in the brain of all the fanaticism of the 
world, (laughter :1 rocked by Thomas Ewing, George II. Pendleton, Samuel 
Cary, and a few others throughout the land. " But it died on the 1st of January, 
'1879, and the one hundred and forty millions of gold that God made, and not 
fiat power, lie upon its little carcass to keep it down forever. [FroFongad ap- 
plause.] 



14 . 

Oh, young man, come out of that I [Laughter.] That is no place in which 
to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of 
order, of law, of justice, of freedom, ["Amen,"] of all that is glorious under 
these night stars. 

Is there any death here in our camp ? Yes 1 Yes! Tln-ee hundred and fifty 
thousand Boldiers, the noblest band that ever trod the earth, died to make this 
camp a camp of glory and of liberty forever. [{Tremendous applause.] 

But there are no dead issues here. There are no dead ideas here. Hang out 
our banner from under the blue sky this night until it shall sweep the green 
turf under your feet! It hangs over our camp. Read away up under the stars 
the inscription we have written on it, lo! these twenty-five years. 

Twenty-live yeai^s ago the Republican party was married to liberty, and this 
is our silver wedding, fellow citizens. [Great applause.] A worthily married 
pair hive each other better on the day of their silver wedding than on the day 
of their first espousals.; and we are truer to liberty to-day and dearer to God 
than we were when we spoke our first word of liberty. Read away up under 
the sky across our starry banner that first word we uttered twenty-five years 
ago. What was it V "Slavery shall never extend over another foot of the Ter- 
ritories of the Great West." [Applause.] Isthat dead or alive? Alive, thank 
God, forevermore I [Applause.] And truer te-night than it was the hour it 
was written. [Applause.] Then it was a hope, a promise, a purpose. To-night 
it is equal with the stars— immortal history and immortal truth. [Applause.] 

Come down the glorious steps of our banner. Every great record we have 
made we have vindicated with our blood and with our truth. It sweeps the 
ground, and it touches the stars. Come there, young man, and put in your 
young life where all is living, and where nothing is dead but the heroes that 
defended it! [Applause.] I think these young men will do that. ["Of course 
they will!"] 

Gentlemen, we are closing this memorable campaign. We have got our 
enemies on the run everywhere. [Laughter.] And all you need to do in this 
noble old city, this capital of the Western Reserve, is to follow them up and 
finish it by snowing the rebellion under once more. We stand on an isthmus. 
This year' and next is the narrrow isthmus between us and perpetual victory 
If you can win now and win in 1880, then the very stars in their courses will 
fight for us. [Applause.] The census will do the work, and will give us thirty 
more free men of the North in our Congress that will make up for the rebellion 
of the South. [Great applause.] We are posted here as the Greeks wera 
posted at Thermopylae to meet this one great Barbarian Xerxes of the isth- 
mus. Stand in your places, men of Ohio ! Fight this battle, win this vic- 
tory, aud then one more puts you in safety forever! 

1 thank you, fellow-citizens, for your patienoe- 



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